Sweetpotato (Ipomoea batatas; Convolvulaceae) is an economically important specialty crop with an overall U.S. production valued at more than $720 million (2020 data, USDA-NASS). Even though virus infections are a major constraint to the sweetpotato industry across the United States and around the globe, organized studies have not been conducted to understand virus diversity and incidence. Therefore, an objective of a transdisciplinary multistate, Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI), CleanSEED Project is to characterize viruses associated with sweetpotato production in major producing states. To that aim, 25 different locations/production fields in Mississippi were surveyed during the 2023 production season to collect symptomatic foliar tissue for total RNA extraction. The detection and identification of viruses of sweetpotatoes was based on a high-throughput sequencing approach on an Illumina platform utilizing 2x150 nt pair-end methodology, followed by computational analyses of billions of raw sequence reads. The four potyviruses, considered of major economic importance for the crop, were prevalent in the state and frequently occurred in mix infections. Furthermore, a few other viruses with possible hosts different than plant, were associated with plants analyzed in this study. This research was supported by the intramural research program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Specialty Crop Research Initiative, accession no. 1029242.
